Sunday, April 9, 2017

The Purpose of ISIS, Pt. 4

This is part 4 of a 5
part report which attempts to detail a history of the rise of ISIS and to
explain its true relations to the actors involved in the war theatre. It
attempts to show how and why ISIS has been exploited while also answering the
question: what has been the group’s
ultimate purpose in relation to the dominant powers manipulating the proxy
conflict. Given what is known
historically, it hopes to shed light on what the motivations are behind the
current actions against the group, as well as what purpose they serve.

The Purpose of ISIS

Awkwardly for those at the helm of the US-led bombing
campaign, as time went on it became increasingly apparent that not only was the
Islamic State not being “degraded and destroyed”, but, in fact, was growing and
taking control of even more territory. This was further compounded by the groups’
relatively weak military capabilities, and the fact that the areas they
occupied consisted mainly of open countryside with relatively few areas to hide
their equipment and convoys.1 US war veterans have even remarked
that the US could have turned the tide against the organization using only
aircrafts from the WWII-era, while other academics explain that “an
international force could defeat ISIS in a matter of months” if they wanted to.2
Despite all of this, after months of airstrikes, the Wall Street Journal noted that the US had “failed to prevent the
Islamic State from expanding its control in Syria”, while the British press
explained that “in both Syria and Iraq, Isis is expanding its control rather
than contracting.”3

In fact, while the Pentagon paraded around statistics of
killed ISIS fighters to showcase the campaign’s success, in reality by the
summer of 2015 the Islamic State had seen a doubling in the number of its
foreign fighters, more than replacing any of those claimed to have been killed.4
Maps were similarly published showing ISIS’ territorial losses, yet at the same
time evidence showed that its other territorial gains had actually offset any
sort of contraction.5 So while US aircraft patrolled the skies
around the so-called caliphate, its fighters were more than free to roam
throughout the territory they had claimed. Indeed, convoys consisting of
upwards of hundreds of vehicles were mainly free to travel in long columns in
wide-open desert terrain despite the ease with which such targets could be hit
by US aircrafts.6

As this continued, it became increasingly difficult to
conceal the truth, especially as Department of Defense analysts began to break
ranks and complain that their superiors within senior levels of the
intelligence command had deliberately been altering reports, downplaying the
campaign’s failures and presenting it in a much more positive light.7 Furthermore,
with the introduction of the Russian intervention, the insincerity of the US
effort was even more laid bare. Not only
had the Russians conducted more sorties against the group in one day than the
US had in months, one of their first targets were its oil truck convoys which
the US had deliberately refrained from hitting during their entire year-long
campaign, despite it being one of the groups’ biggest sources of revenue.8
Awkwardly as well, it was becoming increasingly apparent that US fighter jets
were being particularly careful about avoiding engagement whenever ISIS was
fighting against US adversaries such as the Syrian army or Hezbollah, a
situation which was not lost on the administrations in Tehran and Damascus.9

The motivations underlying all of this were quite clearly
articulated by an Iraqi army officer who argued that the “Americans weren’t
really that serious in hitting the Islamic State.” Getting even closer to the
truth, a commander of a Shia militia fighting in Iraq as well explained “we
believe the US does not want to resolve the crisis but rather wants to manage
the crisis… it does not want to end the Islamic State. It wants to exploit the
Islamic State to achieve its projects in Iraq and in the region.”10

Elaborating on the US’ calculation even further,
international correspondent Elijah J. Magnier explained that “as long as ISIS
was headed towards creating a serious danger to Assad in Syria”, then its
presence could be tolerated. The strategy revolved around maintaining “the organizations
continuing ability to fight for as long as necessary in the process [of]
depleting Iran, Hezbollah and its Iraqi proxies in Syria… Its continuing
presence was needed so as to exhaust Iran and its allies in both Iraq and
Syria.”11

One of the more prominent examples of this was when ISIS
began to expand its control over territories outside of Syria and led an offensive
into Iraq.

The offensive was known to US intelligence long before it
was launched. Indeed, far from being indecipherable, the Wall Street Journal explained that such an advance was “apparent to
anyone paying attention to Middle Eastern events”, noting that it “wasn’t an
intelligence failure. It was a failure by policy makers to act on events that
were becoming so obvious that the Iraqis were asking for American help for
months... Mr. Obama declined to offer more than token assistance.”12

The reasons for this lie in the continuing shift towards
Iran that was being undertaken by then Prime Minister Maliki and the subsequent
expansion of Iranian influence over the Iraqi government that resulted. By this
time, Maliki had appointed the pro-Iranian Hadi al-Amiri as transport minister,
and in doing so “had effectively given Tehran the green light to use Iraqi
infrastructure to channel supplies and fighters through the country to fight in
Syria.”13 Even more troubling, knowledgeable reports indicated that
Maliki’s main objective was to prevent the establishment of any US military
bases in the country, following an official request by Iran.14
Therefore, for those committed to toppling the increasingly Iranian-backed
Nouri al-Maliki administration, the ISIS offensive represented an important
opportunity.

In this sense, the failure of the US to respond was
explained by Obama himself. He noted that the US “did not just start taking a
bunch of airstrikes all across Iraq as soon as ISIS came in” specifically
because “that would have taken pressure off of al-Maliki.”15 Indeed,
harkening back to the aforementioned strategy of utilizing radical Sunni’s to
pressure and put “fear into the government of Prime Minister Maliki”,16
Obama said that a more forceful US response would have encouraged Maliki to
think “We don’t actually have to make compromises. We don’t have to make any
decisions. We don’t have to go through the difficult process of figuring out
what we’ve done wrong in the past. All we have to do is let the Americans bail
us out again. And we can go about business as usual.”17

Therefore, Al Rai newspaper’s Elijah J. Magnier explains
that “as long as the aim of ISIS’s military activity and expansion was to
occupy land in Iraq, governed by pro-Iranian Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
(creating a weak state and much confusion in the Iraq-Iran relationship)”, then
“the ISIS presence in Iraq could be tolerated” by the US.18

The result of this offensive was the unprecedented capture
of Mosul, shocking observers worldwide.

Despite having a fighting force of no less than 350,000
battle-hardened soldiers, the Iraqi security forces simply “disintegrated and
fled” in the face of roughly 1,300 lightly-armed ISIS jihadists.19
This was later explained by analysts as being the result of corruption within
the military, or due to indications that ISIS was welcomed by a significant
portion of the population, or that it had in many ways already been operating a
shadow government of sorts within the city.20 While indicative,
ISIS’ uncontested walk-in to Mosul could
have been more directly linked to the desire of outside powers to replace Prime
Minister Maliki. Indeed, the Gulf states did little to hide their animosity
towards Maliki or their desire to overthrow his regime. As professor Fouad
Ajami pointed out, after the US invasion “the Gulf autocracies had hunkered
down and done their best to thwart the new Iraqi project” and were hoping to
turn Maliki’s Iraq into a “cautionary tale of the folly of unseating even the
worst of despots.”21 At least from Maliki’s own perspective, it was
Saudi Arabia and Qatar which were the main drivers of his overthrow.22

Whatever the case, it was the pressure exerted on Maliki
from the loss of Mosul and the inability to halt the Islamic States’ advances
that were the main catalysts which lead to his ouster. According to one Wall Street Journal reporter, “After the
rout of the Iraqi military that year, combined pressure from Washington and
Tehran led the Iraqi parliament to oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, seen in
both capitals as responsible for the debacle, and to replace him with current Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi."23

In this sense, the presence of the Islamic State had served
a number of purposes for the outside powers involved within the region. Put in
other words, University of Cincinnati professor emeritus Abraham Miller
explains that “the Islamic State exists as a political structure whose function
outweighs the political and military costs of defeating it, not just for the US
but also for the Sunni sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf.” Functions which include
providing “a direct check on the hegemonic interests of Iran to extend its
reach from its eastern border into the Levant… The threat they [ISIS] pose is
tolerated even by the Gulf sheikdoms as long as ISIS is focused on stopping
Iranian hegemony.” Because of this, “Obama has no intention of destroying the
Islamic State”, but rather “ISIS is a chain reaction. As long as it is
controlled, its chaos is perceived to serve a multiplicity of purposes within
and outside the region.”24

6.)McClatchy, “Rebels call for U.S. airstrikes as
Islamic State advances near Aleppo”, 1 June 2015.; C. Davidson, Shadow Wars, p. 432-33.; Huffington
Post, “If Syria and Iraq Become Fractured, So Too Will Tripoli and North
Lebanon.” 1 June 2015.

8.)Moon
of Alabama, “Russia Finds - Shaming The U.S. Government Into Action Can Work”,
3 October 2016.; C. Davidson, Shadow Wars,
p. 443. Citing The Independent, “War
in Syria: Russia’s rustbucket military delivers a hi-tech shock to West and
Israel”, 30 January 2016.

16.)C. Davidson, Shadow
Wars, p. 367. Citing The New Yorker, “The Redirection”, 5 March 2007.
Remarks made by Patrick Clawson, deputy director for research at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy.

17.)Ibid., p. 367. Citing The New Yorker, “The
Redirection”, 5 March 2007. Remarks made by Patrick Clawson, deputy director
for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.